Busy For Fun Blogs: Splainin 2 Do

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A FLASH IN THE PUN

In writing about Boilerplate, the latest fictional character whom I'd like to see get a televersion, I mentioned a previous candidate - Harry Flashman. Flashman was the school bully in "Ton Brown's School Days", a Victorian novel by Thomas Hughes. The book has been filmed several times, and twice for television, so Harry Flashman has had his day in the cathode sun, but there was more to his life than his school days.

Not only because it was the first production broadcast, but also because its episodic form as a TV series provided the opportunity to add as much detail from the novel as possible, the 1971 TV version is the one established in Earth Prime-Time. (The later version from 2005 does boast the presence of Stephen Fry as Dr. Thomas Arnold, though. Tempting as that is, that version has to remain in the Land of Remakes.)

Harry Flashman attacks Tom Brown

In 1969, George MacDonald Fraser published "Flashman", an historical novel purportedly based on the recently discovered papers of Harry Flashman. Over the course of twelve novels, Fraser recounted Flashman's exploits from his early twenties to advanced old age. And along the way, Flashman had adventures in which he crossed paths with many historical figures.

(As a side note, I highly recommend these books, especially if you enjoy salacious depictions of Victorian ribaldry - a lot of "rogering" goes on, which was an excellent source of... shall we say, "inspiration" to a lad in his teens. That is, so I've heard.....)

So far, none of the "Flashman" novels have been adapted for television, although the second novel, "Royal Flash", does have a home in the Cineverse as a movie starring Malcolm McDowall as Harry, with Alan Bates and Oliver Reed in support.

I think the Fraser series of novels about Harry Flashman would make for a great TV series on HBO or Showtime or even Starz, especially with the freedom provided by a premium channel to portray prurient content. (Ah, alliteration!) With the success of 'Game Of Thrones' on HBO and 'The Borgias' and 'The Tudors' on Showtime, perhaps its time to give old Flash a shot.....

I'd like to think that, even without a television series or made for TV movie already established, Harry Flashman's life in Toobworld at least follows the basic guidelines set down by Fraser for a thoroughly debauched life led by Flashman. After all, even though we might not see it take place on our TV screens, Harry Flashman's life did continue after the events of the "Tom Brown's School Days" TV series had ended.

Harry Flashman
with Tom Brown & Scud East

So let's assume that the Rugby School bully grew up to become a lecherous, immoral coward at least similar to, if not exactly like, the Flashman depicted by Fraser. This TV Flashman would end up rogering his way through the ladies of his times, perhaps even with fictional females from other TV series. (Let's say a parlor maid or two in the Bellamy household a decade or two before we met them on screen?)

Being a bounder and a cad, Flashman would not have been morally constrained from any dalliances with married women; and he would have no qualms in leading a young lady on with false promises of betrothal, in order to bed her and rob her of her virtue. And in the course of such a pursuit, he might have proferred a false identity in order to elude being sued for breach of promise.

From the movie "Royal Flash"
But the Toobworld Flashman would find himself in a similar situation

Let's say he did pluck a young lovely's virginity and with such skill that she acquiesced without even learning his name. But as Flashman made ready to flee the following morning, suddenly the deflowered miss might have inquired as to who he was. Caught off-guard, he may have concocted a fake name on the spot.

But what name might he have used?

The Belgian detective Hercule Poirot was faced with such a situation while investigating a murder aboard a particular train.

"'I claim no credit this time. It was not a guess. Countess Andrenyi practically told me.'

'Comment? Surely not?'

'You remember I asked her about her governess or companion? I had already decided in my mind that if Mary Debenham were mixed up in the matter, she must have figured in the household in some such capacity.'

'Yes, but the Countess Andrenyi described a totally different person.'

'Exactly. A tall, middle-aged woman with red hair - in fact, the exact opposite in every respect of Miss Debenham, so much so as to be quite remarkable. But then she had to invent a name quickly, and there it was that the unconscious association of ideas gave her away. She said Miss Freebody, you remember.'

'Yes?'

'Eh bien, you may not know it, but there is a shop in London that was called, until recently, Debenham & Freebody. With the name Debenham running in her head, the Countess clutches at another name quickly, and the first that comes is Freebody. Naturally I understood immediately.'"

Oftentimes, false identities are similar enough to the original to make them easier to remember. (This is probably why almost everybody in the Albuquerque WITSEC program usually keeps their first names - unless it's something strange and/or Amish like Yonni - and gets a last name with the same initial as their original last name.)

A similar situation may have arisen for Harry Flashman when pressed by a romantic conquest to reveal his identity.

There are two ways in which he may have gone with his reasoning to choose the name I have in mind.

ONE - thinking of other uses for his particular variation on his name, he might have thought of the phrase "Flash of lightning".

TWO - This coital quandary may have taken place after his return from the Crimean War. (Again, only if Harry Flashman's TV existence followed the same pattern as that established in the literary universe.) Thinking back on his alleged involvement in the most infamous battle, which took place in late October of 1854, Flashman might have drawn inspiration from the regiment immortalized in the poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

So whether it was "lightning" or the "Light Brigade", Flashman might have combined the key word with the last part of his own name right there on the spot and convinced her that his name was Lightman.

An older Harry Flashman

And off he would have absconded, assured that he would never see her again.

But he may have left a little something to remember him by....

Again, this is all speculation, so why stop now?

What if some woman he rogered found herself pregnant, by this fellow named "Lightman"? O'Bviously she was never going to track him down to do right by her. But she might still have given the child the last name of its father, never knowing how false it was.

And so the family tree of Dr. Carl Lightman might have been established.........

SHOWS CITED:
'Tom Brown's School Days'
'Lie To Me'
'Agatha Christie's Poirot'
'Upstairs, Downstairs'
'In Plain Sight'

OTHER SOURCES:
"Murder On The Orient Express"
"Tom Brown's School Days"
"Flashman"
"Royal Flash"
"Flashman At The Charge"

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: THE PIED PIPER

We interrupt the look at the major figures involved in "The Last Days Of Lehman Brothers" for this Sunday edition of the Video Weekend ASOTV showcase.

On this date in 1284, the Pied Piper led 130 children out of Hamelin, Germany.....

THE PIED PIPER

AS SEEN IN:

"The Pied Piper Of Hamelin"

AS PLAYED BY:
Van Johnson

From Wikipedia:
In 1284, while the town of Hamelin was suffering from a rat infestation, a man dressed in pied clothing appeared, claiming to be a rat-catcher. He promised the townsmen a solution for their problem with the rats. The townsmen in turn promised to pay him for the removal of the rats. The man accepted, and played a musical pipe to lure the rats with a song into the Weser River, where all but one drowned. Despite his success, the people reneged on their promise and refused to pay the rat-catcher the full amount of money. The man left the town angrily, but vowed to return some time later, seeking revenge.

On Saint John and Paul's day while the inhabitants were in church, he played his pipe yet again, dressed in green, like a hunter, this time attracting the children of Hamelin. One hundred and thirty boys and girls followed him out of the town, where they were lured into a cave and never seen again. Depending on the version, at most three children remained behind. One of the children was lame and could not follow quickly enough, the second was deaf and followed the other children out of curiosity, and the last was blind and unable to see where they were going. These three informed the villagers of what had happened when they came out of church.

Other versions, but not the traditional ones, claim that the Piper lured the children into the river and let them drown like the rats, or led the children to a cave on Köppen Hill or Koppelberg Hill, outside of Hamelin, then killed them.

Another version relates that the Pied Piper hypnotized the children into following him to the top of Koppelberg Hill, where he took them to a mysterious land and had his wicked way, or a place called Koppenberg Mountain. This version states that the Piper returned the children after payment, or that he returned the children after the villagers paid several times the original amount of gold.

The story may reflect an historical event in which Hamelin lost its children. Theories have been proposed suggesting that the Pied Piper is a symbol of the children's death by plague or catastrophe. Other theories liken him to figures like Nicholas of Cologne, who lured away a great number of children on a disastrous Children's Crusade. A recent theory ties the departure of Hamelin's children to the Ostsiedlung, in which a number of Germans left their homes to colonize Eastern Europe.

The fact that the characters sing and speak in rhyme could mean that the town of Hamelin was under the sway of Mr. Sweet the demon at that time. (Mr. Sweet was seen in an episode of 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer' and was a 2005 inductee into the TV Crossover Hall Of Fame.)

BCnU!

PS:
I remember seeing this TV movie when I was a kid, years after its original presentation on the old Dumont Network. And I remember being disturbed that the crippled kid got left behind.....

OOH, LA LAW

ROSE:

"Every Sunday I watch 'la Law'."

DOROTHY:
"That's 'L.A. Law'!"
(Later)
SOPHIA:

"Very nice 'counselor'!

Just exactly how close are you to the TV when you're watching 'la Law'?"

'The Golden Girls'

With this example of a Zonk, there's no mention of the MacKenzie-Brackman law firm. So it could be that 'L.A. Law' in Toobworld was the generic title for a reality show, along the same lines as 'L.A. Ink'... only about lawyers.

That reality show could still have been about MacKenzie-Brackman, especially since some of the kids left their zip code comfort zone of 'Beverly Hills 90210' and drove by the office building where the law firm was located - and one of them mentioned that he didn't watch the show.

Three of the actors who starred in 'L.A. Law' in the Trueniverse were mentioned in connection to the show - Harry Hamlin (on 'Six Feet Under'), Jimmy Smits (on 'Married... With Children'), and Corbin Bernsen (in episodes of 'Just Shoot Me', 'Seinfeld', and 'Matlock'). But here's a possible splainin: they all appeared as themselves on the reality show called 'L.A. Law', with the law firm handling cases for them.

Another mention of interest - in 'Psych', Henry Spenser was a likely candidate to be the identical cousin of Arnold Becker. And back in 1989, Henry thought the show would be a passing fad (despite the involvement of his cousin.) With all of these mentions - even into the new millennium! - if it is a reality show in Toobworld, it proved to have legs.

Finally, Alan Rachins appeared in an episode of 'Eli Stone' in which he was credited as a "Familiar Lawyer". Longtime visitors to Toobworld know that I don't put much stock in credits, but I think it would be safe to assume that he was actually Douglas Brackman.

But here's the thing - representing Eli at his disbarment hearing, this "familiar lawyer" was working for a law firm called McKinley-Breckman, not MacKenzie-Brackman.

It's a bit intricate, and built on sand, but here's how it might work.....

'L.A. Law' went off the air in 1994, but its last appearance in Toobworld was in 2002 with the reunion TV movie. So in that six year span, until Rachins showed up in that 'Eli Stone' episode, anything could have happened to Douglas Brackman.

It could be that he finally committed an act of sexual deviance so heinous that the partners of the firm had no choice but to convene and drum him out of the firm with a vote. Desperate to still trade on the firm's name to build up business for himself, Douglas could have incorporated himself as a law firm with fictional partners named McKinley and Breckman. (We've seen that happen before in Toobworld - 'Eisenhower & Lutz'.)

Douglas may have wanted to make the potential client think he was still affiliated with McKenzie-Brackman, hoping they weren't too familiar with the original firm's name. Eli Stone would have known the difference, but it wouldn't have mattered. He wanted the best lawyer for the situation, and probably no one knew the intricacies of office politics in a law firm better than Douglas Brackman.

Anyhoo, it's pozz'ble, just pozz'ble.....

BCnU!

THE O'HARA LINE: A THEORY OF RELATEEVEETY

When 'Psych' returns for a new season, William Shatner will be making a special guest appearance in an episode - playing the father of Detective Juliet O'Hara. Frank O'Hara is a con man, long estranged from his daughter (probably because of the career path she chose.) But he comes to Santa Barbara to mend their relationship. (I wonder if this means that his character is dying?)

This would mean that he's also the father of Ewan O'Hara as well, but I don't know if John Cena is returning to reprise that role. (If I was in charge, I'd let the upcoming episode be Shatner's showcase and then bring them both back for an O'Hara family reunion - if Pops O'Hara survives his debut, that is.)

As the Toobworld caretaker, I'll be curious to see if Shatner's character mentions his own Dad; because as it stands now, I have a theory of relateeveety that says Juliet's grandfather was the chief of police in Gotham City. And that Jules chose to follow in his footsteps rather than her own father's.

I'm tempted to add Tim O'Hara, the Los Angeles Sun reporter who co-habited with an extraterrestrial humanoid during the 1960's to the family tree, but I hesitate to say that he was also a son of Chief O'Hara. It would be easier to make the claim that he was the son of Chief O'Hara's brother, thus making him Frank O'Hara's cousin. (Tim had a cousin Harvey and a great-uncle named Shamus.)

The age difference between William Shatner and Stafford Repp was a lot closer than appeared, but Repp played Chief O'Hara as somewhat older than he really was at the time.

Since the fashion sense in Gotham City was very conservative and a bit out of date, it might be possible that Frank O'Hara visited his dear old Dad at Gotham City police headquarters wearing a suit like this.....

But then again, being a con man, he may have avoided Gotham City and its Dynamic Duo crime-fighters at the cost of his relationship with his old man........

SHOWS CITED:

'Psych'

'Batman'

'My Favorite Martian'

'Star Trek'

BCnU!

LEHMAN BROTHERS - A TELEVISION REVISION

Well, this is an interesting development.....

The concept of Toobworld is always in flux, constantly evolving, constantly being rewritten. For the most part, the blame (as such) falls on me - sometimes I'll make statements that have to be retracted because I wasn't so thorough in my research. Other times it's due to revisions or new additions to the established canon of a series. So in that way, the Toobworld Dynamic is like the medium it studies.

Two examples of both from the same show:
1) I claimed in a blog post that the new version of 'Human Target' could exist in the same TV dimension as the original, which starred Rick Springfield. (It's existenc as a comic book doesn't enter the equation.) I had the splainins and everything! But then they had to do an episode with a totally different Royal Family of Great Britain, which tossed them into an alternate TV dimension from Toobworld and the Trueniverse.

2) Because of that, I added the new 'Human Target' to a Super-Six List of TV shows that could be set in the 'West Wing' universe. But as one of Team Toobworld pointed out, I could have held on to that claim if it was just Queen Elizabeth who had been mentioned on 'The West Wing'. (We saw a totally different Queen Elizabeth in the 'Human Target world, and she was kind of hot in an older woman sort of way. And it will probably turn out she's younger than me, but still.... Hot!)

But as the Team Toobworld member pointed out, 'The West Wing' mentioned other members of the true Royal Family (either Prince Edward or Prince Andrew) who were specific to those found in Toobworld as well as the real world.

This is why I'm thankful that I have Team Toobworld - I really depend on them!

So that's all meandering blather to lead up to the latest revision......

In promoting the HBO movie about the 2008 financial collapse, I ran a series of As Seen On TV features for each of the main characters, all drawn from real life. And for all of them, I stated that they were to be found in Earth Prime-Time, the main Toobworld.

(With Timothy Geithner, I used him for the "Two For Tuesday" edition, as he had also been portrayed on 'Saturday Night Live', placing that portrayal in Skitlandia. And for Warren Buffett, who played himself in at least one other Earth Prime-Time series ['All My Children'], I claimed that the version played by Ed Asner was a quantum leaper.)

A basic tenet for Earth Prime-Time inclusion is that old "First Come, First Served" rule. Whichever version of a project is broadcast first, that has the right to remain in the main Toobworld. The next would go to the "Land of Remakes" then on to other dimensional choices like "the evil mirror universe", but falling short of the Tooniverse or Skitlandia (unless it's animated or a comedy sketch, respectively.)

There are exceptions to every rule, of course. The most famous one for this situation is that of Sherlock Holmes. There were two earlier TV series about the great detective that I know of - one with Ronald Howard, the other with Peter Cushing. But it's the series with Jeremy Brett as Holmes whom I've decided should be the permanent tenant of Earth Prime-Time, because his series had the most adaptations of the original stories written by Dr. Watson and edited by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

(I may yet keep the Ronald Howard version in Earth Prime-Time, if I can successfully make the argument that his Holmes was an imposter. Peter Cushing's portrayal, just based on the five remaining episodes in existence, all from the canon, should go to the Land of Remakes. Not only because it was the remake, but also because they were that good.)

Again I'm blathering.

So anyhoo, I was doing some research on James Bolam for a theory of relateeveety connected to the Friday Mug-Shot feature when I discovered that he had been in a TV movie about the 2008 financial collapse made by the BBC in 2009, well over a year before HBO's "Too Big To Fail".

"The Last Days Of Lehman Brothers" has most of the same real world players as "Too Big To Fail" (played by a few ex-pat Americans for the most part), but with some exceptions.

Bolam's character of Ken Lewis, for example - he appears in "Too Big To Fail", but not in big enough a capacity to merit a name actor with star power for the role. Warren Buffett? Not even listed among the "dramatis personae" to be found at the IMDb.com. If he's not even in the movie, then there's no need for that 'Quantum Leap' splainin, at least in Earth Prime-Time......

As for Jim Wilkinson, played by Topher Grace in "Too Big To Fail", he could have been changed to a character named Zack played by Michael Landes in the Brit version. I'd have to see it to be sure.

So because it aired first, "The Last Days of Lehman Brothers" will now be considered the official record of those events in Earth Prime-Time. And "Too Big To Fail" will be packed off to the Land of Remakes. (I really do need to come up with a catchy name for that world.....)

All this week, we'll be running a new batch of As Seen On TV showcases for the main players, starting with the man who started the ball rolling - James Bolam's portrayal of Ken Lewis.

BCnU!

THE ALICIA LINE: A THEORY OF RELATEEVEETY

The Toobworld concept is basically a fantasy universe with mythological overtones and many of the trappings of Fantasy. Wizards, dragons, quests, enchanted/enchanting maidens, and objects imbued with great power all have their counterparts in the TV Universe.

This post, while a theory of relateeveety, will take a look at one such fairy tale aspect - the evil stepmother and the absence of the princess' real mother.....

'Flying Blind' was a FOX sitcom that ran for only one season (1992-93) and will be chiefly remembered for bringing Tea Leoni to national prominence. (She certainly caught my attention!)

Leoni played a mysterious free spirit named Alicia caught up in an affair with a tightly-wound recent college graduate named Neil Barash, whose mannerisms suggested that he worshipped
at the altar of Woody Allen. (Not sure the Catholic imagery works in a Woody Allen analogy though....)

And by "mysterious", I mean we never learned very much about Alicia, not even her last name. We got to meet her father, a spy and adventurer who may have fathered children in the South Seas, but we never even learned his name at all; he was just "Daddy" to Alicia (and "Sir" to Neil).

Alicia would talk about her mother, but the woman sounded like a horrid witch, as bad as - if not worse than! - the mother of the 'Absolutely Fabulous' Patsy Stone.

Here's a good example - when Alicia finally came downstairs ready for her high school prom, she found that her mother had already seduced Alicia's prom date, and she was rolling a cocktail onion across his stomach with her tongue.

By the time 'Flying Blind' took place, Alicia's Dad must have divorced that harridan because he mentioned that he had a girl-friend when he showed up and Alicia didn't treat the news as though he was cheating on her mother.

For Toobworld's purposes, I don't think that woman was actually Alicia's mother; rather, she was Alicia's evil step-mother, who had been in Alicia's life for so long that it just made things simpler for Alicia to refer to her as "Mother" whenever she mentioned her.

She may not even have remembered her true mother, whom I believe passed away when Alicia was only a few years old. And I have a candidate for Alicia's birth mother, as well as a theory about her family tree that would bring in not only 'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea' but also 'The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes' as well.

Here are two online descriptions of the episode from 'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea' entitled "Escape From Venice":
ONE

A smiling, happy and relaxed Lee Crane, looking oh so dashing in a white tux, steps into a Venetian gondola with a very pretty girl. But romance is the last thing on the couple's mind. Crane has gone undercover in Venice to pick up a secret code from another agent -- the seemingly innocent girl in the white veil. However, unbeknownst to Crane and Alicia, the enemy is on to them. The girl is viciously murdered, Crane is severely wounded, framed for the murder, and is now a hunted man. Now the only person on earth who knows the code, Crane must stay alive long enough for Nelson to effect a rescue.

TWO

Crane and Alicia, a female agent, are in a gondola in Venice, Italy. She sings Crane a song with lots of LaLas. Then he sings it--it is a message which will decode Dr. Leonetti's tapes which explain a defense against the ultimate weapon. Leonetti, Crane calls Seaview and tells them, is dead. His body was fished out from under a canal--and they are calling it suicide. A young sandy haired man is in the radio shack aboard Seaview, not Sparks. If the song is put through the computer, sonically, it will decode the tapes. As Alicia begins to sing it over the radio to Seaview--the gondolier, an enemy agent, stabs her in the back through the curtain. She gives Crane the key and address to the safe house and dies. Crane fights the killer but falls overboard in the fight. The killer calls for help in Italian.

It will be my contention that the late and lovely spy named Alicia was the mother of Alicia from 'Flying Blind'.

'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea' took place in the early 1970's, even though it was broadcast a decade earlier. If we do a bit of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey juggling, Alicia would have been about five years old when her mother was murdered on that gondola.

Alicia's Dad in the late 1960's

I think Alicia's Dad met that agent named Alicia during the course of an undercover operation and they fell in love. Whether or not they got married, I don't know; but I'd like to think that their relationship resulted in the birth of a daughter which "Dad" insisted on naming after his wife (although it may have been that he was following a tradition from the maternal side of his wife's family).

After Alicia was murdered in Venice, a distraught "Dad" may have unwisely married a woman simply to give his baby daughter a maternal influence. He had no clue at the time that she would turn out to be the stereotypical evil stepmother.

Regarding the naming of Alicia after her mother, it's possible that this was a family tradition handed down through the generations along the maternal branch of her family tree. I don't know if they would all prove to be free spirits and adventuresses, but it just might be that one of them was singular enough back in the late 1800's to have a ship named after her:

"The cutter Alicia, which sailed one spring morning into a small patch of mist from where she never again emerged, nor was anything further ever heard of herself and her crew."

Dr. Watson mentioned this case of Sherlock Holmes in the "Thor Bridge" story, which had to have occurred before October 1899. (Although "The Problem Of Thor Bridge" was adapted for the series starring Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke, we hear no mention of this case which never received a full report from Holmes' Boswell. Then again, it may still lay unread in a safe deposit box near Charing Cross.....)

As usual with my theories of relateeveety, I can't prove any of this. But as it's unlikely 'Flying Blind' will ever be revived (Forget about Brett's Holmes and 'Voyage'!), then it can't really be disproved either.

Since 'Flying Blind' was canceled after only one season, I have no idea if Neil and Alicia are still together twenty years later. But as with most fairy tales, I'd like to think they lived happily ever after........

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: BENEDICT ARNOLD

Benedict Arnold, whose name came to personify a traitor, died on this date in 1801......

BENEDICT ARNOLD

AS SEEN IN:

"Benedict Arnold: A Question Of Honor"

AS PLAYED BY:

Aidan Quinn

TV DIMENSION:

Earth Prime-Time

From Wikipedia:

Benedict Arnold V (January 14, 1741 [O.S. January 3, 1740] – June 14, 1801) was a general during the American Revolutionary War. He began the war in the Continental Army but later defected to the British Army. While a general on the American side he obtained command of the fort at West Point, New York, and plotted to surrender it to the British forces. After the plot was exposed in September 1780, he was commissioned into the British Army as a brigadier general.

Born in Connecticut, Arnold was a merchant operating ships on the Atlantic Ocean when the war broke out in 1775. After joining the growing army outside Boston, he distinguished himself through acts of cunning and bravery. His actions included the Capture of Fort Ticonderoga in 1775, defensive and delaying tactics despite losing the Battle of Valcour Island on Lake Champlain in 1776, the Battle of Ridgefield, Connecticut (after which he was promoted to major general), operations in relief of the Siege of Fort Stanwix, and key actions during the pivotal Battles of Saratoga in 1777, in which he suffered leg injuries that ended his combat career for several years.

BENEDICT ARNOLD

AS SEEN IN:

'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea'

AS PLAYED BY:

Barry Atwater

TV DIMENSION:

Earth Prime-Time, pre-temporal reboot

Also perhaps due to the wibbly-wobbly rigors of time travel

From Wikipedia:

In spite of successes, Arnold was passed over for promotion by the Continental Congress while other officers claimed credit for some of his accomplishments. Adversaries in military and political circles brought charges of corruption or other malfeasance, but he was acquitted in most formal inquiries. Congress investigated his accounts, and found that he owed it money after he had spent much of his own money on the war effort. Frustrated and bitter, Arnold decided to change sides in 1779, and opened secret negotiations with the British. In July 1780, he sought and obtained command of West Point in order to surrender it to the British. Arnold's scheme was exposed when American forces captured British Major John André carrying papers that revealed the plot. Upon learning of André's capture, Arnold fled down the Hudson River to the British sloop-of-war Vulture, narrowly avoiding capture by the forces of George Washington, who had been alerted to the plot.

Arnold received a commission as a brigadier general in the British Army, an annual pension of £360, and a lump sum of over £6,000. He led British forces on raids in Virginia, and against New London and Groton, Connecticut, before the war effectively ended with the American victory at Yorktown. In the winter of 1782, Arnold moved to London with his second wife, Margaret "Peggy" Shippen Arnold. He was well received by King George III and the Tories but frowned upon by the Whigs. In 1787, he entered into mercantile business with his sons Richard and Henry in Saint John, New Brunswick, but returned to London to settle permanently in 1791, where he died ten years later.

Because of the way he changed sides, his name quickly became a byword in the United States for treason or betrayal. His conflicting legacy is recalled in the ambiguous nature of some of the memorials that have been placed in his honor.

Not exactly a figure to admire from my home state.....

Two for Tuesday!

BCnU!

COLONEL KLINK MEETS BATMAN

The scheduling is not lost on me......

I've written about the appearance by Colonel Klink in the 1960's only recently:

Klink showed up in the 1960's in a building which the dynamic duo was scaling. Since he looked no older than he did when he was incompetently in charge of a POW camp more than twenty years before, it's the Toobworld Central theory that he served as the guinea pig for the suspended animation process that was later used to freeze the Fuehrer (as seen in 'The Adventures of Fu Manchu' and 'The Man From U.N.C.L.E.')

BCnU!

MISSING LINKS: THE MIRROR OF PORTUGAL

Horace Dorrington was considered one of 'The Rivals Of Sherlock Holmes' in Toobworld, whose exploits were first chronicled in a series of stories by Arthur Morrison. As a private investigator, he was corrupt, amoral, and on at least one occasion, a murderer. He could be relied upon to solve his cases, if only that, but always as a means to lining his pockets with more than his established fee with the client.

Wold Newton scholar Rick Lai considers Dorrington to have been the third most dangerous man in London, after Professor Moriarty and Colonel Moran from the Sherlock Holmes canon.

In one of his cases (set in 1895 as per the TV series, if not the original stories), Dorrington was hired to retrieve the fabled Mirror of Portugal, a diamond thought lost since the French Revolution. Until recently it was passed down through the generations of his client but it was stolen from around his neck. Dorrington tracked down the thief to be a Mr. Hamer, who shared an office with the client.

Dorrington forced Hamer and his wife to take him to where the diamond was kept, but it turned out Mrs. Hamer had it on her all the time. And when they reached the Thames, she threw the legendary stone into the river - if she couldn't have it, then no one would. After first insuring that he had collected his fee from his client, he then told the man and his brother where it could be found... which is all that he had been contracted to do.

And so the Mirror of Portugal lay at the bottom of the Thames, slowly sinking into the mire of the sediment, for over one hundred years. But then in 2006, a strange occurrence happened - the Thames River suddenly drained off, near to where the diamond lay in the muck.

In order to save the Earth from the resurgence of the Racnoss spider empire, the Gallifreyan Time Lord known as the Doctor opened a floodgate that caused the surging waters to cascade down into the center of the Earth where the clutch of spider eggs were just hatching after being dormant since the formation of the planet.

It wasn't just water that flowed down into that shaftway, but the muck and the mire and all the detritus to be found in the Thames. And that included the Mirror of Portugal.....

BCnU!

MUTANTS!

Mutants aren't just found in the comic books and movies; they're also in Toobworld. Earth Prime-Time had at least one TV series about Homo Superior - 'Mutant X'. ('Heroes' may have been about mutants, but they could also have been about mutates. Mutants are born that way; mutates are genetically altered later. Beast of "The X-Men" - now a resident of Toobworld thanks to a Farmer's Insurance blipvert - is both. Anyhoo, after Future Hiro met Peter Perrelli on the subway, the timeline was changed and the rest of the series ended up in a parallel dimension. So if there was anything to that stuff about their powers being triggered by an eclipse later in the series - I dropped out partway through Season Two - then it wasn't really relevant to Earth Prime-Time.)

'The Twilight Zone' had at least one mutant - Jimbo Cobb, a simple man with the power of telekinesis. And even Claudette Colbert played a mutant, in an episode of 'Suspicion'.

"The Last Town Car" told the story of Edith Miller, who thought she was being haunted by an old-fashioned taxi. Whenever she rode in it, she was transported back to a crime connected to the cab some decades before.

It turns out she had psychic abilities and was actually tapping into the memories of the cabby. Many years before, he was the personal driver for a spiteful old man who ruined the lives of his own two children. The driver couldn't stand to see him hurt anyone else and so he pushed his boss into the oncoming traffic. As he thought back on his crime, the scenario was replayed for Mrs. Miller as though she was actually there to observe it.

I don't know if either Jimbo Cobb or Edith Miller can blame an eclipse for their abilities; I think they were born with those "talents". But based on the ages of both characters, mutant abilities pre-date the dawn of the atomic age....

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: THE BRITISH HOME SECRETARY, 1913

REGINALD McKENNA

AS SEEN IN:
"The Masks Of Death"

AS PLAYED BY:
Ray Milland

In this TV movie in which Peter Cushing once more assayed the role of Sherlock Holmes (albeit now with Sir John Mills as his Dr. Watson), Holmes was called away from his investigation into the strange deaths of several men by a special request to investigate the disappearance of a German prince which might have international repercussions in that volatile year leading up to World War I.

That request came from no less than Great Britain's Home Secretary, personally.

The Home Secretary was never named, but since we know the affair took place in 1913, it was a simple combination of Google and Wikipedia which led to the information... information... information........

From Wikipedia:
Reginald McKenna (6 July 1863 – 6 September 1943) was a British banker and Liberal politician. He notably served as Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer during the premiership of H. H. Asquith.

Home Secretary
In office
24 October 1911 – 27 May 1915

Monarch: George V

Prime Minister: H. H. Asquith

Preceded by Winston Churchill

Succeeded by Sir John Simon

McKenna was elected at the 1895 general election as Member of Parliament (MP) for North Monmouthshire. He served in the Liberal governments of Henry Campbell-Bannerman and Herbert Henry Asquith as President of the Board of Education, First Lord of the Admiralty and Home Secretary.

As Chancellor of the Exchequer in Asquith's coalition government, he opposed the introduction of conscription, and retired into opposition upon the fall of Asquith at the end of 1916.

Even though Cushing's Holmes preceded that of Jeremy Brett with a TV series back in the 1960's (of which only five episodes remain), it is Brett's interpretation that is considered the official version for Earth Prime-Time. Therefore, the alternate dimension in which Peter Cushing portrayed Holmes may have had a different man in the office of Home Secretary.

However, I don't think we have to consider Cushing's Holmes to be living in either the dimension of '24', 'Commander-In-Chief', or 'The West Wing'. (Or - closer to home - the alternate dimension of the 'Human Target' remake, which had an entirely different Royal Family in England.)

Perhaps he could be found in the Land of Remakes, or in the "Evil Mirror Universe" - the two major alternate TV dimensions, where the historical figures should still remain the same as those found in Earth Prime-Time as well as in Earth Prime. And whichever one was not chosen, that could be the home for Ronald Howard's portrayal of Sherlock Holmes.

BCnU!

McBAIN!!!! (A THEORY OF RELATEEVEETY)

Pinky Pinkston was the heir to her father's fortunes via the Pink Chip Stamps Factory. But she wasn't the only daughter of Pincus (Pinchas?) Pinkston - as a result of an affair he had with another woman, the elder Pinkston was the father of a young woman named Lisa who was Pinky's identical half-sister. (A closer genetic possibility than an identical cousin, you have to admit!)

Lisa may have been disowned by her father, rebuffed by her half-sister, and so in retaliation she turned to a life of crime. In alliance with Jervis Tetch, AKA the Mad Hatter, Lisa helped kidnap the various members of the jury who put Tetch away in Gotham State Prison......

(Diane McBain played both roles.)

BCnU - same Toob-time, same Toob-channel!

AS SEEN ON TV: WARREN BUFFETT

Of all the famous names in the 2008 financial crisis to be portrayed in the HBO movie "Too Big To Fail", only one proved problematic for Toobworld:

WARREN BUFFETT

AS SEEN IN:

"Too Big To Fail"

AS PLAYED BY:

Ed Asner

STATUS:

Recastaway

Unlike all of the other televersions in this historical replay, Warren Buffett had already been portrayed in the main Toobworld. (Timothy Geithner had been portrayed previously, but that was over in Skitlandia on several editions of 'Saturday Night Live'.) Added to that quandary is the fact that it was Warren Buffett as a member of the League of Themselves in an episode of 'All My Children'.

The billionaire may have even been playing himself in the season finale of 'The Office'. Who knows why a man of his status would want to take the position of manager for a paper company branch in Scranton, Pa.? (Perhaps there's even more trouble with the Berkshire Group than previously known.....) Although we don't give credence to credits, Buffett was only listed as "Interviewee". So he could have been playing himself, or he could have been an identical cousin, or some other Doppelganger.)

Leaving his appearance on 'The Office' out of the equation, we still have the recastaway problem between 'All My Children' and "Too Big To Fail".

The HBO TV movie was a re-creation of true events, based on a book chronicling the collapse of the financial markets in 2008. Using documented evidence like scheduled meetings as a guide, certain characters would have met with each other, as seen on TV. There might have been transcripts of those meetings from which dialogue could be drawn. But not all of that interplay could be public record. A lot of dialogue which occurred behind closed doors must have been from the imagination of the screenwriter only.

So at least one aspect of the story had to be fictionalized. Why not then take a quantum leap into supposition and suggest other aspects may have only happened in Earth Prime-Time but not on Earth Prime?

How about this - Warren Buffett was replaced by a time traveler from the Future? (Speaking of 'Quantum Leap'.....)

To the audience viewing at home, if you're familiar with 'Quantum Leap', the Leaper would be visible as himself. But to those within the Toobworld reality, the Leaper would look like the "Leapee".

So, as realistic as "Too Big To Fail" strove to be, it was still the Toobworld version of events, and that is never exactly the same as what happens in the Trueniverse.

We've seen History change all the time in Toobworld - historical figures having their lives changed by the Doctor (Van Gogh, Dickens, Queen Victoria, for example), the Enterprise crew (Mark Twain, for one), and time travelers coming into contact with Presidents Lincoln and Kennedy (as seen on the old and new versions of 'The Twilight Zone'.)

So why can't it happen in recent history as well?

Therefore, the Warren Buffett of "Too Big To Fail" was from the Future (farther along in the timeline than Dr. Sam Beckett), sent back to that critical time in History "to make right what once went wrong." And having accomplished the task, the Leaper returned to the Future and Buffett rejoined his life, already in progress.....

BCnU!

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